1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to windshield wipers and more particularly pertains to a heated windshield wiper blade utilizable to melt snow, ice, and the like on a vehicle windshield.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of heated windshield wiper blades is known in the prior art. This is evidenced by the granting of a number of patents relating to various functional and structural aspects of heated windshield wiper blades. An example of known pertinent patents includes U.S. Pat. No. 5,325,561 which issued to Edward Kotlar on Jul. 5, 1994 and which discloses a typical heated flexible windshield wiper wherein a thin elongate and very flexible heater wire is disposed in and extends longitudinally throughout the body of the flexible wiper blade. Another example of a heated windshield wiper is to found in U.S. Pat. No. 4,497,083 which issued to Nielsen, Jr. et al. on Feb. 5, 1985. This patent is further representative of a large number of patents which relate to heated windshield wipers and wherein resistance wiring runs along the length of a wiper arm, the blade carrier, and the wiper blade for the purpose of heating the blade and carrier when connected into a vehicle electrical system.
While each of these prior art patents disclose devices which fulfill their respective particular objectives and requirements, and are most likely quite functional for their intended purposes, it will be noticed that none of these patents disclose a heated windshield wiper blade for heating windshields wherein the resistance wiring so utilized also functions as a spring-like retention means for holding a blade to blade carrier while further being shaped and configured to more efficiently dissipate heat within the blade per se.
As such, there apparently still exists the need for heated windshield wiper blades which utilize resistance wiring that serves the function of both frictionally gripping a blade to a blade carrier and also distributing heat throughout and entire blade assembly. In this respect, the present invention substantially fulfills this need.